“With a contraction in bank liquidity and lending and an increased radar for bank stress testing from regulators due to the recent turmoil, banks with the highest [Commercial Real Estate] concentrations could see a pull-back on their lending books to allow their debt to roll off,” writes Trepp, an analyst specialising in securitized mortgages. As a result, there could be lower origination volumes in the coming months and years.

  • Even the Roman money -although it was issued by a central authority- was backed by gold, silver, bronze and other commodities, at least partially (inflationary debasement of coins became an important feature over the centuries).

    But, yes, to a high degree this is hairsplitting, and you may agree that comparing currency systems of different historical epochs doesn’t make sense as their economies and societies are too different for such a rough comparison.

    What I say is that our current fiat currency system -the one we have since 1971- is unique in that it is largely created by banks themselves: The money volume created by the fractional reserve system is much larger than the volume printed by the central bank (~ ten times). This is unique in history to the best of my knowledge, l don’t know of a similar example. And imo it is a huge part of the current financial problems we have been facing for some time, including the problems described in the linked article.